Love across the Water - Wesley and Helen's Wedding by Fraser Stewart Photography

When Californian native Wesley met Glaswegian girl Helen love blossomed, after years of long distance love, romance across university hallways and a (nearly disastrous) proposal they celebrated their wedding at the very cool and creative House for An Art Lover in Glasgow, Scotland. Surrounded by beautiful Art Nouveau pieces by Charles Rennie MacIntosh, this artistic pair enjoyed a day in their dream venues surrounded by friends and family from both sides of the globe all captured by their good friend Fraser Stewart.

We met at an intentional community and study centre in the South of England. We started dating after a month and a half and continued dating for the next three and a half years. For two of those years we did long distance between Scotland and California, until Wesley came out to complete a Masters degree in Glasgow. We got engaged in the Summer and got married the next Winter. After the 6,000 mile distance, eight hour time difference, immigration difficulties, and months of being apart, we can say with some certainty that this marriage is on some sturdy ground.

I love Helen's style and unique gown. Like many brides she thought she knew exactly what dress she would end up in... I was sure I would end up going for a vintage dress as I couldn’t find anything I liked in most bridal shops. I bought a 1920‘s vintage evening dress and was really chuffed with it but while I was shopping with my Mum in Frasers I passed by a dress hanging on the sale rack in their evening wear department. I tried it on and loved it. I bought it and took the other one back!

It's probably best that Wesley explain how the proposal came about, the poor man certainly went through the mill to get his fair lady's hand... "It was extremely stressful but turned out incredibly successful. Months before the day, I had booked a pontoon plane to fly us from the Glasgow Science Centre on the Clyde to Loch Lomond. This plane ride was going to be the highlight and big surprise of the day, but four days before the planned proposal I was given a call that the pilot was sick and the flight was cancelled. I began to freak out, but they gave me another option for a flight from Loch Lomond the same day. Once I re-planned the whole day I was given a call at 5pm the afternoon before the big day, apologising that the Loch Lomond flight was cancelled for weather reasons. This was completely gutting and I questioned whether I should wait for another day to ask, but I soldiered on. So, after all the stress from the plane flights the actual proposal day went perfectly. I got up early and made Helen's favourite breakfast, we went to the planetarium at the Science Centre for a star exhibit, took a train to Loch Lomond while listening to a playlist of our favorite songs, and then finally took a walk around the Loch until I found the perfect place to pop the question. All in all, it was a fantastic day."

Wesley and Helen had their ceremony in University of Glasgow Chapel. The couple came across the location, when they went to watch a gig there a year before the wedding and thought its gothic interiors epic. The pair both studied at Glasgow University too, so it had added meaning... wait till you see inside!

Incorporating elements of your personalities into the ceremony can make it more meaningful...The arts are very important to us, Wesley is a musician and I write, illustrate and study literature and so we wanted this to be reflected throughout the day. A highlight for me was during the service when we had a string trio play Arvo PÃ¤rt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ while two of my good friends read some poems and exerts from the Bible I had chosen. The service was very intimate and personal, and it was so special to be surrounded by so many people we love.

With a gorgeous chapel for their ceremony the reception venue had to be pretty epic too... It was a real dream come true getting to have the reception at the House For An Art Lover. Helen had been a big fan of Architect Charles Rennie MacIntosh, so when we were able to use that as our venue for the reception we were over the moon. MacIntosh’s designs are so intricate and beautiful, we really didn’t have to do much of anything in terms of extra decorations. The venues did play a significant part in making the wedding elegant.

With Wesley a California native and Helen, a Glasgow girl, this wedding was a meeting of cultures, so to aid cultural cooperation the couple made sure to incorporate elements from each of their backgrounds and little things to make the meeting and mixing that bit easier..."The priority from the beginning was to make our wedding personal. We did not stress about every little detail, but made sure the important elements reflected who we are. We spent a long time deciding the way we would have the ceremony; each musical piece, hymn, and reading was significant to us. To keep things intimate, we tried to keep the list of all day guests small so we could look out and know each face. In more of the American style, we had a good number of speeches as well, which was a chance for folks to get to know our families. I think everyone who was at our wedding got a better sense of who we are because of the personal focus."

The newlyweds were surrounded by good friends who were on hand to help throughout the day...We had a lot of great friends who contributed a lot to our wedding. Our friend Fraser Stewart did a wonderful job of photographing the wedding, our friend Ruth made our wedding cake - an art deco style cake made from Bourneville dark chocolate, our good friend Joel did a brilliant job at officating the service, and our friend Gerry was DJ and got the crowd to dance for four hours straight on the dance floor.

What advice would you give to brides and grooms planning their day? I think it’s safe to say guests generally don’t remember the colour of your napkins, but they do remember the atmosphere of the day. There are a lot of details to plan for the day but I found that when I kept my focus on the main things the little details got sorted more quickly and with less stress. I think it is tempting to obsess about planning the ‘perfect’ day, but ultimately I think that creates too much pressure and sucks away the joy the day can hold. It poured with rain on our wedding day (proper Glasgwegian rain) and if we had been focused on everything going perfectly to plan we might have been disappointed. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference to us- the day turned out to be more special than I imagined.